Surgical punches and forceps are well known in the art, as illustrated by the surgical punch and surgical forceps disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,712,545 issued to G. Honkanen. Such instruments are frequently used in arthroscopic and other surgeries to cut and clamp, respectively, body tissue.
In typical arthroscopic, laparascopic and other surgical procedures, cartilage or other tissue is clamped, cut, shaved or otherwise formed using special surgical tools which are sized so as to allow the tools to extend into an interior surgical site (i.e., the interior of a joint) from a point outside the body through an opening-lining tube or cannula. Often, a saline wash is pumped into the surgical site through an inlet cannula and out of the surgical site through an outlet cannula.
As part of both open and closed surgical procedures, it is often necessary to remove severed cartilage or other tissue material from the surgical site. Absent such removal, the severed pieces of tissue can lodge in the joint being operated on and cause irritation, degeneration and pain.
In the past, in closed surgeries (e.g. arthroscopy), it has frequently been difficult to sever and then extract a piece of cartilage or tissue through one of the cannulae used in the closed-surgery procedure. In a typical procedure, the piece of tissue which is to be removed is first clamped, e.g. with forceps, to prevent the latter from escaping once cutting is effected, and then a punching or other severing device is used to detach the selected piece of tissue from the remaining tissue. Unfortunately, because the forceps or other clamping device often surrounds some or all of the piece of tissue which is to be removed, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to bring the punching or severing device into the desired contact with the tissue. On the other hand, if the piece of tissue is not clamped prior to removal, the tissue may escape once it is cut free, to thereafter lodge in some undesirable location. Thus, known surgical punches and forceps are typically not well adapted for cutting and removing a selected piece of body tissue from a closed surgical site.
In both open and closed surgical procedures, it is also frequently necessary to place a suture stitch in a piece of tissue, or to stitch together pieces of tissue with suture material. In closed surgeries, such as arthroscopy, it is difficult using conventional straight or curved suture needles to stitch suture material through a piece of tissue. In open surgeries, it is frequently difficult using a conventional straight or curved suture needle to stitch a piece of tissue where there is insufficient room behind the tissue to pass the suture needle. Furthermore, in both open and closed surgeries, it is often difficult to wrap a piece of tissue, such as a ligament, located in a relatively inaccessible region of the surgical site, with a piece of suture material using conventional surgical instruments.